


Nest

by Luna_wolf



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Fandom
Genre: Ben Solo you're doing great sweetie, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Kylo Ren Redemption, Redeemed Ben Solo, Slow Burn, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, gratuitous cuteness, porgs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_wolf/pseuds/Luna_wolf
Summary: (Spoilers for The Last Jedi)He’d set fire to the galaxy for her, he supposes he can play nursemaid to a few Porgs for her.





	Nest

CW: for mentions of violence against animals. 

This is the first fic I've written in twelve years, be nice plz. 

Shoutout to my friend's lizard, Yoshi, who inspired this fic by immediately running up my arm and into my bra. 

________

 

The Falcon seems smaller, somehow, though he still knows every scratch and dent by heart from the distant days of his childhood. Kylo – no, he’s Ben here, he can’t forget that - never thought he’d see it again in this lifetime, but here he is, boots ringing against the ancient durasteel. 

It’s only been a few weeks since he arrived at the Resistance base in a stolen TIE fighter, fleeing charges of treason for the murder of Snoke with Hux’s marshalls hot on his heels. The Resistance, even depleted as it was, took care of those quickly enough, and they might have done in for him too if it wasn’t for her. It was Rey who’d run into the hangar bay, placing herself between him and the blasters of an angry Resistance. Rey, whose presence had led him through their bond to the location of their hidden base like a beacon. 

They offered him amnesty, of course, in return for state secrets from the First Order (which he freely gave), but none of them seemed quite sure what to do about this wolf in their midst, no one quite trusted him enough to give him an actual position with actual responsibilities. They shy away from him instinctively. He can’t blame them - he’s unused to the Light. Choosing it is like exercising muscles that have atrophied for too long, he’s clumsy at it and this irritates him. Still he’s made his choice and he knows he must learn to live with it.

The light. He closes his eyes and he can feel her, like a torch, like a pillar of fire. He’s found himself trailing her like a dark inept shadow lately. She’s the only one who doesn’t doubt him, and though he’d never admit it to her, it’s only in her presence that he can feel his own doubts pushed away by her unwavering faith in him. 

Rey is moving carefully along the wall of the Falcon, knocking against the durasteel and then pressing her ear against it to listen. She has a small container of some kind of stinking fish clipped to her belt that makes him wrinkle his nose.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

She doesn’t even look up, absorbed in her task. Tap tap, listen. “Trying to get the Porgs.” Through his link with her, he feels the salt of a distant sea and hears the cries of small creatures in their cliff nests.

He sighs. The Resistance is in shambles, the First Order leaderless and vulnerable, and she’s trying to collect pests. “This is really your priority?”

“Yes. They defecate everywhere, rip up the wiring for their nests, and drive Chewie mad. The other day, the nesting female got into the compressor and-“ she makes a vague gesture with one hand, indicating a fiery end for the unfortunate Porg, frowning. “So I’m looking for the nestlings. There should be three of them.” 

She’s apparently heard something promising, because she wrenches off the cover to a vent with a growl of effort and scatters a handful of the pungent fish in the vent, then settles back on her heels to wait. 

“Couldn’t you get access to biotoxins?” he asks. “You could scatter them in the food.”

She whips around, eyes blazing. “No!” She hisses, in that outraged morally superior tone that infuriates and attracts him in equal parts. “They’re just little things far from home, they didn’t ask to get ripped from their planet and lose their mother, and they don’t deserve to die because of it.”

Ah. Of course she couldn’t bear to harm any parentless creature. She knows too well what that’s like.

Having realized it would be futile to talk her out of this, Ben squats down next to her. “Don’t you have nets, at least? A cage to put them in?”

“Oh I don’t need that. When I was small I could catch skittermice with my bare hands. It was a good skill to have on Jakku.”

It unnerves him sometimes, how blithely she can speak about being an abandoned starving child, how this lightness belies the deep pain she carries with her everywhere. He has found he hates the idea of her helpless and abandoned on a desolate world.

“Also, you’re here to help me.” She flashes him a grin, eyes glittering with pleasure, her irritation at him already forgotten.

He opens his mouth to protest, then closes it. He already knows he can deny her nothing. 

Small noises from the vent attract her attention. She slowly leans the top half of her body into the vent, lithe as a cat. A lightning quick move accompanied by a series of outraged peeps and the fluttering of wings, and she’s snagged the first Porg. 

Porglets is the proper term, but Ben can’t even think it with a straight face. Besides, this one is more adolescent than infant, his adult plumage already coming in. 

The tiny creature peeps in protest and flutters its wings futilely. “Here, hold him.” Rey deposits the Porg in Ben’s hand. 

Ben looks at the Porg.

The Porg looks at Ben. 

The little creature really is disgustingly cute. His nose twitches nervously and his eyes are pools of feeling. Ben clumsily tries to cradle the Porg between too-large hands more used to wielding a lightsaber than holding a small creature. He strokes the Porg’s head with a hesitant finger and the little creature’s eyes close in pleasure. 

“Ah! Gotcha!” More outraged peeps, and Rey deposits a second little Porg in Ben’s hand. The newcomer peeps greetings at her sibling, nuzzling him briefly, then sets about exploring. She’s bolder than her brother, nosing at the creases in Ben’s hands and even starting to skitter up his wrist like a bridge. He awkwardly tilts his arm so the little Porg doesn’t fall. The other Porg peeps and follows suit. 

Porgs can move quickly, Ben learns. The sensation of tiny Porg feet on the sensitive flesh where his neck meets his shoulder causes gooseflesh to erupt across his skin, but the two Porgs seem pleased at finding this warm nest and settle down just under his ear.

When Rey turns around with the third Porg hatchling in her hands, she is treated to a view of the one-time disciple of Snoke and heir of the Sith with two Porg hatchlings on his shoulder, grooming his hair and peeping happily. He holds his body unnaturally stuff to ensure their comfort and looks at her plaintively. 

“Rey...ah...a little help” 

She doubles over laughing. Even in his annoyance, he can’t help but see how beautiful she looks when she laughs, how fully she gives herself over to pleasure. Her realizes he has never heard her laugh like that. 

“I’m glad my predicament entertains you,” he grumbles.

Her lips slightly parted and her face flushed, Rey moves close enough that he can feel her breath on his cheek...and places the third Porg nestling on top of his head.

Her renewed cries of laughter almost drown out the happy peeping of the Porg siblings. Ben gazes up morosely at the tiny Porg, who seems quite pleased with her new perch. 

“Alright, get ahold of yourself,” he grumbles. “What are you going to do with them? Bring them all the way back to Ahch-To?”

“Of course not,” Rey scoffs. She carefully removes the two young Porgs from Ben’s shoulder and tucks them in the crook of her arm, offering them a few fish to keep them docile. “They’re too young to survive on their own. We’re going to look after them until they’re fully grown.” 

“We...?” He asks wearily. 

“Yes. We.” She replies firmly. 

He eyes her sourly and then sighs, resigned. He killed Snoke for her, he’d set fire to the galaxy for her, he supposes he can play nursemaid to a few Porgs for her. “You should at least find a cage to put them in so they don’t end up back in the vents.” 

She smiles down at the Porgs, dropping morsel after morsel of fish into their open mouths. “I don’t think they’re going anywhere. I think we’re family to them now.”

Family. He suddenly imagines himself back on Ahch-To with her, a world away from the war. They are surrounded by the sounds of the sea and the cries of Porgs, and she drives out the cold of the beehive hut with warmth and light. 

Not a true vision, but something to hope for. A light to move towards. A nest to create together.

Rey uses her free hand to reach for the Porg still nested atop Ben’s head. Apparently reluctant to leave her nest, the Porg peeps irritably and Ben feels a sudden wetness in his hair. A growing smell confirms his worst fears, and Rey’s eyes go wide. 

“It didn’t.”

“It did.” Rey looks horrified for a moment and then dissolves into laughter again. It’s almost worth this humiliation to see her like this.

Almost.

-END-

 

Ben Solo, you're doing great, sweetie.


End file.
